LAST DAY – Blatchley Middle School eighth-graders sit on the bleachers with family and friends sitting around them Thursday during the annual Rights of Passage ceremony at the school. Students gave speeches and received certificates from principal Ben White during the program which marks the students' transition to high school. Thursday was the last day of school in the district. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

Services for Shirley Joyce Winters have been scheduled 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 8, at the United Methodist Church, 303 Kimsham St. Officiating will be the Rev. Robert Hattle, the Rev. Charles Bovee, and the Methodist pastor the Rev. Ferdinand Llenado. A celebration of Shirley’s life will follow at Swan Lake Senior Center. Shirley, a Sitka resident since 1964, died Sept. 4 at the Sitka Pioneers Home. She was 79. She was born May 23, 1933, in Banida, Idaho, the daughter of Carlile and Elizabeth Campbell Casperson. In 1943 the family moved to Gustavus, and then to Juneau, where Shirley graduated from Juneau-Douglas High School. She attended secretarial school. Shirley lived in Ketchikan before moving with her then-husband, Richard Winters, to Sitka in 1964, where they opened Richard’s Interiors furniture store on Sawmill Creek Road. In the 1970s it was named Alaska’s Small Business of the Year. Shirley began her active life of giving and sharing when she was a child in the Girl Scouts. She continued on to help many organizations throughout the community, an adept and faithful volunteer. She was an active member of the Pioneers of Alaska, Beta Sigma Phi, the Alaska Native Sisterhood, the Republican Party and Brave Heart Volunteers, holding offices and serving on boards. She was extremely active in the First Presbyterian Church, where she was a lay pastor, deacon, elder, church secretary and moderator of Presbyterian Women of Sitka. She enjoyed knitting, baking cakes and pies, sewing and spending time with her family, friends and her organizations. She made a special effort to form a strong bond with each of her grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents, Carlile and Elizabeth Campbell Casperson; siblings Jeannette Trevarthen, Dallas Casperson and Bruce Casperson; a niece, Helen; a great-nephew Devon; a son, David Winters; and a son-in-law, Ken Mahoskey. She is survived by a son, Jon Winters of Marble, N.D.; and daughters Carla Mahoskey of Sitka, Karen Dhillon of Santa Clarita, Calif., and Colleen Palmer of Las Vegas, Nev.; 17 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. Honorary pallbearers are Kevin Casperson, Jerome Mahoskey, Dylan Mahoskey, Conner Mahoskey, Marcia Mahoskey and Jheryn Lewis. The family suggests that in lieu of flowers contributions be made to the Alaska Native Sisterhood, 235 Katlian St., Sitka; or Brave Heart Volunteers, P.O. Box 6336, Sitka.